It’s always very funny when it happens, paleontologists discover a new extinct species and they name it after a celebrity because of some particular feature… According to the Washington Post, they came up with the funny name of ‘Jaggermeryx naiad’ which means ‘Jagger’s water nymph’! Scientists named an extinct animal, a cross between a skinny hippo and a leggy pig, after the famous Rolling Stones frontman… But why? Why doing this to Mick Jagger? Not just because the hippo-pig was skinny – hey, Jagger is still in great shape – but just because this extinct species had some great flappy lips…
Lips do not fossilized but the jaw of the animal, which was discovered by Ellen Miller, an associate professor of anthropology who specializes in paleoanthropology, had a series of 8 holes on either side, that held nerves providing sensation to chin and lips. ‘These holes would have allowed nerves to reach the lips. Given the number of holes, it’s a good bet this animal probably had large, sensitive lips, which could have helped it feed in muddy water,’ declared Clementz, one of the authors of the paper. Thus, this super innervation was giving to the animal a supersensitive lower lip and snout, very useful for foraging for plant foods along riverbanks, something like 19 million years ago in Egypt. You have to understand that the desert was very swampy at the time
Swamp, big lips, old age, do you follow me? But there is something else too, this paleoanthropologist is also a big fan: ‘I like the Rolling Stones,’ said Ellen Miller to News Wake Forrest University with a big smile, ‘I’m a huge Stones fan.’
This explains a lot, and this reminds me when Donald Johanson named the famous Anthropologist after the famous Beatles song’s ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. Miller said the name Angelina Jolie was also suggested by some of her colleagues – they could also have suggested Steven Tylermeryx? – but Miller is a Mick girl. Still, I know pigs can be cute but who wants to name a fossil after his/her idol? By the way, Jagger had already a trilobite (Aegrotocatellus jaggeri) named after him, some ancient 500 million-year-old arthropod, which doesn’t make him any younger.
